Tag Archives: healthy

How adorable are these South Carolina wine glasses that one of my bridesmaids got us for our engagement?

Hi everyone! Sorry for being MIA for the last couple of months…I’m not sure if you heard the news yet – but I am excited to share with you all that Trevor and I are engaged!! Not only are we engaged, but Meaghan is my maid of honor! Super exciting 🙂

This healthy bachelorette has been wedding planning like woah! Of course, we have been meal planning and cooking healthy meals and I am excited to getting back to sharing some of my recipes with you all.

Here is a recipe I made the other night that is perfect for a summer weeknight dinner out on the porch, or to bring to your 4th of July picnic. It’s a great side dish for grilled salmon or chicken, or even put it on a bed of arugula for a refreshing summer lunch. If you start snacking it on for breakfast, that’s not the end of the world either. The best part? It has 5 just ingredients!

Simple Cucumber & Watermelon Salad

Serves: 2 servings, 2 leftovers

Ingredients

3 cups watermelon, cut into 1″ cubes

1 large local cucumber, cut into half moons

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup feta cheese

Directions:

Cut the watermelon and cucumber.

In a large glass bowl, add the watermelon cubes, cut cucumber, olive oil and lime juice. Toss to combine.

Full steam ahead! I’m back in my 7th out of 10th class in grad school (yes this is taking forever…), working full time at Pure Barre and as a Coach for All Access Internships. Woah buddy. All great things – but sometimes it just doesn’t allow for making healthy bachelorette meals. (Though did you hear the news?! Bachelorette only for a little while longer!)

Meal planning really helps during these busy weeks, and be sure to check out our healthy meal planning tools. These are the kind of weeks when you revert back to college and instead of doing laundry – you just buy more underwear. Yeah that happened.

Check out my weeknight power bowl! The majority of this recipe is prep, especially if you use chicken that you already cooked earlier in the week. It is a yummy, healthy and fresh meal for one that you can save for the next night, or even bring for lunch the next day. It provides lots of color from the vegetables that serve as your base, and you top it all off and make it more than your typical boring salad by adding hummus, avocado and a fun lemon cilantro vinaigrette. Did you know that the Vitamin E in olive oil helps you absorb the nutrients in your vegetables? See, salad dressing isn’t always a bad thing! Enjoy and happy cooking 🙂

The weather has been frigid and dreary which means I don’t want to do anything except wear flannel pajamas, eat cheesy foods, and watch Rom-coms. Despite this, I am determined to not let the annual “winter coat” back on (or, better known as the reason I have 8 pairs of jeans in varying sizes). I love to make soup, especially the good and hearty type. This soup accomplishes that perfectly and, as a bonus, is thickened with cannelloni beans making this a low-fat, high fiber version!

Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Serves: 2 (+4 lunches!)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, sliced

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups of water

1 can cannelloni beans, rinsed and drained

2 carrots, peeled and minced

3 cups of chopped broccoli

2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, plus extra for serving

1/2 cup 1% Milk, optional, and recommended 🙂

salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat a soup pot on medium and add the olive oil and onions. Sauté for 2 minutes until they turn clear.

Add the garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. (If it starts to become dry, add a tablespoon or 2 of water.)

Add the stock and water to the pot. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes. (This is important as all of the flavors from the onion and garlic season the stock).

Add the cannelloni beans and blend everything together using an immersion blender. This will create a nice puree of your aromatics and beans.

Add the carrots and broccoli to the pot with the puree and allow the soup to simmer for another 5-8 minutes, until the carrots and broccoli are soft.

Blend the soup again until it is almost entirely pureed. Leaving some whole pieces of broccoli works well.

Add the cheddar cheese (and milk, if desired), stir until melted, and season to taste! Serve with extra cheddar.

*You can also use a regular blender, obviously! When blending in step 5, leave about 2 cups of the soup in the pot and puree the rest.

*If freezing, do not add milk to the soup. You can add milk when re-heating at a later point.

This fall I joined the Hub City Farmers Market CSA – Fall Farm bag, and am really loving it! I have heard about CSA’s before, and have had friends who have joined them, but 4 servings of produce every week was just too much food and it would have gone to waste. This farm bag is perfect as it supports local farmers with produce that has been picked within the last 24-48 hours and is only $15 per week for 8 weeks. Every Saturday, I select which items I would like in my farm bag, and the bag is actually delivered to my office on Tuesday! It is a very exciting part of my day. This season is almost over, but if you live or work in the the Spartanburg area, I would highly recommend the Hub City Farmer’s Market CSA program for Spring.

Since it is a fall farm bag, we have been getting a lot of fall squashes such as butternut, acorn and of course spaghetti squash! This has caused me to get quite creative with my fresh recipes (exactly the result I wanted out of this program). This week I got a little creative with my spaghetti squash.

If you have never had spaghetti squash, I highly recommend you try it. It is a gluten free option to spaghetti, is a whole food (no added chemicals, preservatives, fat or salt) and actually has way less calories than real spaghetti. One cup of spaghetti has 221 calories, compared to spaghetti squash which has about 40 calories per cup – that is over 5x the calories! And I promise you, the texture and the flavor is way better than bland out of the box spaghetti. Try using spaghetti squash in any dish you would typically use spaghetti noodles (with pesto, marinara sauce etc).

Recently, I have really been obsessed with these “spaghetti squash boat” recipes you see on Pinterest . It’s super easy, just roast the squash, add in your toppings, roast a little more and serve. Check out my BLT Spaghetti Squash Bowl below and don’t be expecting leftovers .. you will want to eat it all!

BLT Spaghetti Squash Boats

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 Medium Spaghetti Squash

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

4 pieces nitrate free bacon (I used Applegate)

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1 6oz bag baby spinach

2oz goat cheese, divided

Black Pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the both ends off of the spaghetti squash, then cut it in half. Scoop the seeds out with a spoon.

Drizzle 1 Tablespoon of olive oil and grate fresh black pepper over each half of the spaghetti squash.

Place the spaghetti squash face side down on a cookie sheet. Bake on 425 for 35-40 minutes.

While the spaghetti squash is cooking, cook the bacon in a large frying pan on medium-low heat trying not to char it.

Once the bacon is cooked, place on a plate with a paper towel and pat off the extra grease.

Add the spinach and halved tomatoes to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes until spinach is wilted.

Once the spaghetti squash is roasted, remove from oven and turn over face side up. Fill the middle of the spaghetti squash with the spinach and tomatoes and top with crumbled bacon and 1oz of crumbled goat cheese.

How are you liking them so far? Next week will be our last apple recipe – so be sure to check back!!

This weekend was the fantastic Fall for Greenville – and it did not disappoint! I was so grateful to have my baby brother (who is, ahem, 24) and his girlfriend Erin here to visit. We always have such an awesome time and the weather in SC in October is perfect! We did a lot of eating and drinking downtown, but tried out some stuff at home too. Check out the Apple Cider Sangria Erin and I came up with on Sunday! It’s the perfect combination of cozy flavors and just enough sweet. Like Erin said, “it doesn’t take like wine or vodka at all, it tastes just like apple cider – which is why Sangria is so awesome!”

Apple Cider White Wine Sangria

Servings: 6 wine glasses

Ingredients

1 bottle of Pinot Grigio

2.5 cups Trader Joe’s Spiced Apple Cider, divided

0.5 cup Vodka

1 apple, chopped

2 cinnamon sticks

Cinnamon and Sugar

Apple slices for garnish

Directions

Combine 1/2 cup of the apple cider with 2 cinnamon sticks and boil in a small pot for 10-15 minutes.

Combine the Pinot Grigio, 2 cups of apple cider, vodka, apple and cinnamon stick/cider combination into a large pitcher.

Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 12-24 hours.

Serve in a wine glass with an apple slice, and optional cinnamon sugar wine glass rim.

Since you really can’t tell it’s September yet, why not hang on to the last of the fresh summer produce?! Strawberries have been so delicious this year and I’m always looking for alternative ways to eat therm, other then shoveling them into my mouth. I definitely have a sweet tooth; however, it’s nice when you know your dessert contains healthy ingredients like oatmeal, cinnamon, and fresh fruit. OH, and bit of Kate’s butter makes it even better (everything in moderation, people!). Enjoy this dessert and don’t you dare feel bad about it, TREAT YOSELF!

I have heard from many of our followers that they have gotten spiralizers recently, and I am so excited about that!! I love how you can take one of your favorite pasta dishes, and create it into a healthy low carb dish that literally takes half the time.

This dish is inspired by a recipe I saw on Pinterest. I added some flare and used low carb zucchini noodles instead of spaghetti (which has 45 grams of carb per 1 cup cooked…a cup of pasta is not very much!). Proof that any pasta recipe you see can be transformed into a guilt-free dish by using zucchini or summer squash noodles! What are some of your favorite pasta dishes that you want to make with the spiralizer? Be sure to leave a comment and/or recipe below and we will try to re-create it!